These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For
by dancinbutterfly
Summary: Before the mission at Stanford, the way Chuck thought of Bryce Larkin wasn't simple, but it was certainly easier. Bryce/Chuck slash


**Title:** These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For  
**Story Status:** Complete  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Chuck. If I did, it wouldnt be called Chuck. It would be called "Bryce Larkin: International Man of Mystery."  
**Pairing:** Bryce/Chuck  
**Rating:** R just to be safe  
**Spoilers:** Tag/Missing scene for Chuck vs The Alma Mater  
**Authors Notes:** This is my first fic in this fandom and if it sucks, please forgive me. This is all guestage's fault. YOU DID THIS TO ME LADY! Sighs I got bit by a brain worm. This is the story that resulted.  
**Betas and helpers:** Unbeta'd forgive me. I needed to get it up and out of my hands so that I could sleep without the need to nitpick.  
**Reviews:** I live and breathe for the them. Please let me know what you think. It's a new fandom and I'm all nerves.

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Morgan told Sarah that Bryce was the Fette to his Solo. And that's a cool idea but Chuck's never really liked that analogy. He never thought it fit him and Bryce.

After all, Boba Fette and Han Solo had never been friends. The beef they had with each other was purely professional. Solo pissed off Jabba the Hutt a few too many times and Fette took the contract.

There's no emotion in that.

No, Bryce is more the Anakin Skywalker to his Obi-Wan Kenobi. That metaphor works better, plus, Chuck likes the idea of being Obi-Wan and he's wondered a few times if Casey's got a weak enough mind to pull the Jedi mindtrick on.

But yeah, Obi-Wan loved Anakin. Loved him more than any Jedi should. And when Anakin turned from a man that Obi-Wan could trust into Darth freaking Vader it pretty much ruined Obi-Wan for the rest of his life.

And for a long time, that was fine. He could simmer on that. There's no shame in being one upped by your own personal Darth Vader. He's Darth Vader, for god's sakes. He's big, tall, scary-voiced, black-cape wearing evil.

Morgan's counter to that would be to remind him that Darth Vader was good in the end. Yeah he cut off Luke's hand but saved the rebel forces in the end. Darth Vader was the one killed the Emperor.

And in the end, in that last shot on Endor with the Ewoks, he was back with Obi-Wan. The part of Chuck that's a sappy, liberal romantic believes that it's a small mercy. The kindest end to one of the most tragic love stories ever to grace the screen.

Chuck can't really watch Return of the Jedi anymore which isn't really fair. He loves the classic not-remastered genius that was the Star Wars trilogy. Star Trek was what he shared with Bryce but Star Wars was always his and Morgan's thing. They used to watch the whole thing at least five or six times a year, including the crappy prequels (they had a complex drinking game for each of the three Hayden Christensen films and only watched those when they weren't working the next day).

But since Bryce died, he can't stand it. It gets in the way of his not-thinking about Bryce.

But since they've gotten home from Palo Alto, not-thinking about Bryce is impossible. He hadn't seen or heard Bryce in four years but being on that campus had sent it all crashing back.

And worse, seeing him on his computer monitor, hearing him say those things, broke something in Chuck, something he's pushed away and covered with the memory of Jill, his friend and sometimes lover who was fine with being called his girlfriend so that he and Bryce hadn't had to come out.

A Jedi shall not know anger nor hatred nor love. Bryce had pulled all of that from him.

No one had ever made him as angry as Bryce and he'd never hated anyone was much as he hated Bryce for betraying him, for ratting him out. For letting him leave.

That was what he'd been angriest about. That Bryce could look at him the way he had for four years and then in the blink of an eye he could turn away from him completely.

Bryce had spent college making Chuck need him, want him, live for those moments between classes when they would sneak to their place in the stacks, those nights where Bryce would roll out of his own bed, cross the room and climb in with Chuck, kissing the back of his neck before tugging his shoulder so that he could kiss Chuck's lips instead.

Chuck hated Bryce for getting him addicted to that closeness, that connection, and then taking it from him with no reason. No explanation.

He'd fed on that for years. He let Morgan and Ellie and Captain Awesome back him up on his resent him. It had been rehashed so many times that the transition from loving Bryce to hating him had seemed natural. Comfortable even.

Then he'd clicked on his name on a disk and there was Bryce. And it wasn't not-an-accountant, super-spy Bryce or cold, distant, angry Bryce.

The Bryce in video was his Bryce. The Bryce he'd loved, who had loved him. The guy who had taken care of Chuck all through college, up to and including the time he took a beating in his place when Chuck picked a drunken fight with a bunch of drunk muscle-bound idiots during an away game at UCLA.

He's got no idea what to do with the Bryce on Professor Fleming's disk. He just knows that he doesn't want Sarah to take the disk. He wants to watch it again. Over and over until the sound of Bryce's voice – the way his voice breaks on the word survive, the way he says Chuck's name they way he used to with the lights out and their boxers somewhere at the foot of Chuck's bed – is burned into his brain like those stupid Intersect flashes.

But he can't get any of that out as she pops open the disk drive and takes back what isn't his. And when she leaves, he's got nothing but a blank screen and an ache settled right between his ribs that hasn't hurt this bad since the day he left Stanford.

He manages to go a full twelve hours before he drives out to the cemetery. Casey's tailing him, keeping an eye on the computer in his brain even now, but he just can't find it in him to give a damn as he crosses the grass to Bryce's grave.

Bryce's parents or the CIA or whoever didn't waste any time getting a headstone up. It's your standard bread-shaped granite with Bryce's name carved into it. Beneath his birth and death dates are the words "Beloved son."

Chuck lands with a thump on the ground, probably right over Bryce's head and leans back against the tombstone, his eyes shut and the palm of his right hand pressed against the carved L, O and V in beloved.

"You're supposed to be a Sith," Chuck says, laughing a little at how childish that sounds, even when the only people who can hear him are the dead. "I was happy with that. When you were the dark lord of the freaking Sith and the reason my life was crap, I could deal with you being dead. I was relieved even."

He scrubs at his eyes with his left hand and opens his eyes. Casey's leaned against the same tree Chuck stood beneath during the funeral and gives Chuck a nod. He taps his ear with one hand, then shakes his head slowly and Chuck nods back, understanding.

He's glad Casey's not listening. Chuck doesn't think he'd tell but this isn't his to hear.

Chuck turned around and pressed his forehead to the cold stone.

"But now all of a sudden you're not and I don't…" He paused, drawing in a deep breath through his nose. "How'm I supposed to deal with you being dead now, Bryce? You…" his thumb slides around and around the groove of the O. "I thought you'd stopped loving me. I thought you hated me. I thought, God, I thought…"

He swallowed hard around the sharp ache in his throat. Tears pricked at his eyes, the first he's let himself have for Bryce since the last time they made love.

"I thought I could deal with you being gone if you didn't love me. I could've. I would've. I'd have stopped loving you eventually. Ellie's been on me to move on and I thought 'he's dead, I'll never know what really went wrong, maybe I can stop banging my head into the wall over and over again now. I can stop pretending that Jill's the reason I'm stuck in 2003 and find someone who'll love me.'"

He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut, choking for breath. "Only you did. You did love me. Why couldn't you have just fucking told me? On my way out, just grabbed me and said 'I'm sorry' or 'Keep in touch' or anything. Anything and I would have tried. We could have had years."

The first of his tears slipped past his eyelashes and hit the ground soundlessly. He'd never been a graceful crier which was probably why he tried not to if he could avoid it. With him it got messy and snotty and just all kinds of ugly.

"You took those from us," he hiccupped. "They were my years too, Bryce. You should have given me a choice, bangwI'." He laughed at the sound of Klingon on his tongue choking as his laughter mutated into a strangled sob.

He hadn't spoken it in years, not since he and Bryce broke ties. Klingon had always been theirs – their own private language. Something that Chuck didn't share with anyone else, not even his sister or Morgan.

Bryce had said that to him, their first time. Staring down at him with those insanely blue eyes. Hovering over Chuck, braced with one hand using all that crazy gymnastic strength Chuck had always admired, he'd leaned over and whispered it in his ear, bangwI' SoH. Then he'd kissed Chuck again and pushed inside, taking everything that Chuck was and making it into something new with pleasure.

Chuck hadn't understood then. Bryce had always been the smarter of them. The one farther ahead. Later, he'd spent hours reading through Bryce's Klingon Dictonary before he pieced the declaration together. Once it all clicked together he'd found Bryce in the common room of the dorm and dragged him up to their room to return the sentiment.

For years the memory had made him grin just thinking about it. Now it made him feel like little pieces of him were breaking off and dying.

"qamuSHaqu net jIH muS." Chuck mumbled softly, his lips brushing the granite like a kiss. "I really fucking hate it. And I hate missing you. I've sort of forgotten what it's like not to and I hate that even more."

When his dad died, he'd gotten this vibe when he was going through his clothes, like he was there,T administering one last pat on the shoulder before moving on. The moment had comforted him, helped him let go.

He hopes for maybe a gust of wind from Bryce. Or a bird song. Something. Anything.

But there's nothing, just hot, still silence in the Los Angeles sunshine, the stagnancy of the moment making one thing abundantly clear. He isn't going to get a Star Wars moment. His ghosts aren't going to say good-bye.

Chuck doesn't tell Bryce's grave that he loved him in any language as he collects what little dignity he had left and rises to leave. All of a sudden, he doesn't think Bryce can hear him.

(fin)

Klingon(I did the best that I could with it)  
qamuSHaqu net jIH muS - I hate that I love you.  
bangwI' SoH - you are my love  
bangwI' - my love


End file.
